Sean Williams
Author of seventy published short stories and twenty-nine novels, nominated for the Ditmar, the Aurealis and the prestigious Philip K Dick Award for SATURN RETURNS, Williams has been published around the world in numerous languages, on-line, and in spoken word editions. His current projects include ASTROPOLIS, a gothic-noir gender-bending space opera trilogy, and THE BROKEN LAND, a dark fantasy series for children set in the same fantasy universe as the BOOKS OF THE CHANGE. Concluding volumes in each, THE GRAND CONJUNCTION and THE SCARECROW, are 2009 books. He has also written the novelization of the computer game STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. MAGIC DIRT: the Best of Sean Williams was launched in 2008 and won the first Aurealis Award for Best Collection.
Sean's science fiction has been likened to that of the "Three Gregs" (Benford, Bear and Egan) while his fantasy has garnered comparisons to Peter Carey, China Miéville and Ursula K. Le Guin. His novel THE CROOKED LETTER was the first fantasy novel in the history of Australian speculative fiction to win both Ditmar and Aurealis Awards. The fourth instalment of the BOOKS OF THE CATACLYSM, THE DEVOURED EARTH, was released in Australia in September, 2006.
With collaborator Shane Dix, he produced the EVERGENCE, ORPHANS and GEODESICA series and co-wrote the STAR WARS: NEW JEDI ORDER: FORCE HERETC trilogy. Together, they have been called "the new Niven & Pournelle for the 21st century".
Sean has written for the stage, and one of his short stories was adapted by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild in 2009. Apart from reviews, music (for which he won a Young Composer's Award in 1984), and the odd haiku (including "hairku" for 2007's MOVEMBER), occasionally he makes up new words. He also likes to remix the work of other writers, most recently Kim Wilkins and Gary Numan.
Sean lives with his wife and family in Adelaide, a city once described by Jules Verne as the prettiest in Australia and by Salman Rushdie as "an ideal setting for a Stephen King novel". He completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Adelaide University in 2005 and is currently a PhD candidate at the same institution. He is a founding board member of the award-winning Big Book Club Inc., on the executive of the Australian Society of Authors, and Deputy Chair of the SA Writers' Centre. He has been a peer assessor for the Literature Board of the Australia Council and chair of the literature advisory board of Arts SA. He judges or has judged for the Aurealis Awards, the Somerset National Novella Competition and the Writers of the Future contest. He has tutored for Clarion South (2005 and 2009) and is an honorary member of the International Golden Key Honour Society. He has been a guest of all the literary festivals of Australian capital cities (some of them more than once) and various National SF Conventions. His name appears on the Celebrity Atheist List. He is occasionally confused with fellow Australian speculative fiction author Sean McMullen, to hilarious results.
